Fooled by Mirrors

And sometimes that was it

slow and puzzling

a dirty rainbow

allowed to penetrate

dazzling volumes.


[originally posted May 23, 2009.]

Glitch3 Launch Party Tonight at the Luminary Center for the Arts

I've got a piece, "The Thing Tangible," published in the new issue of Glitch3: Connection Time-Out. Other contributors are: Alex Petrowsky, Simon Høegsberg, Nicole Rainey, Bram Perry, Jason Eppink, Vadim Gershman, A.J. Patrick Liszkiewicz, Richard Parker, Misha Sulpovar, Caroline Cusano. Glitch3 was designed by Vadim Gershman and Justin M. Smith.

GL_ITCH 10.15.10 from Ryan Powell on Vimeo.

Glitch3: Connection Time-Out is complete! It is an object to behold –- a full-color, perfect-bound book with detachable art and glitchEd content. Glitch3 is published by Post Literate, a brand-new publisher/music label. Come celebrate the launch of Post Literate/Glitch3 and US English, an electronic/glitch/operatic music outfit also celebrating the debut of its brand new EP, What Frontier. There will be people, food, drink, music, moving and static images and copies of Glitch3 for sale. $10 gets you inside + a copy of US English's What Frontier EP + a discounted copy of Glitch3. The show kicks off promptly at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 15th, at the Luminary Center for the Arts.

Music by: Phaseone / US English / 18 & Counting

GLITCH 3 /////////////// n.3 from Ryan Powell on Vimeo.

T. Renner to Read at Poems, Prose & Pints at Dressel's on Tuesday, October 5

I'll be reading at Dressel's 419 North Euclid, in the Central West End, on Tuesday, October 5, as part of the monthly Poems, Prose & Pints series. The reading begins at 7:00 p.m. and admission is free.

Also reading will be Jon Dressel, Erin Goss, Kelli Allen, David Lucas, Rebecca Brown Gregory, and the featured reader James Stone Goodman.

I'm not sure yet exactly what all I'll read but I'll be sure to read this poem:

Times Square, 1973

A smell barely remembered reminds her
of the day when the two of them met
and went to a Times Square hotel. She
should have known better than to skip
lunch and pick him up. He sometimes
complained when she did. But the fashion
has changed, she said. In the room,
she imagined rather than felt
the breeze from an open window
that he gazed out, humming quietly.
She asked him to come nearer and like
a long fall slowed she reached out
and touched him and it stood up and
went hard into the pink and together
they moved rhythmically. They could not
stay with it long but he could move
as she moved and then he shivered slightly
and with delight shuddered. They turned
aside and she stared at the lights beyond
as if awakened on the other side.

Poems, Prose & Pints at Dressel's on Tuesday, October 5

I'll be reading at Dressel's 419 North Euclid, in the Central West End, on Tuesday, October 5, as part of the monthly Poems, Prose & Pints series. The reading begins at 7:00 p.m. and admission is free.

Also reading will be Jon Dressel, Erin Goss, Kelli Allen, David Lucas, Rebecca Brown Gregory, and the featured reader James Stone Goodman.

I'm not sure yet exactly what all I'll read but I'll be sure to read some of the poems I wrote during National Poetry Month this April:

A Question

trouble, do you need

us, all shades of restlessness &

delicate nuances of

lamentations, we are but

the ethical absolute,

an inflection given to words, well

aware of our sticky

barefeet?

do you need us?


Summer, Washington University in Saint Louis

smokers outside in a circle
four boys -- one girl
in black and white stripes
one guy shuffles his feet and paws
at the ground with his right foot
like a horse, a stallion, a randy
thoroughbred

girl swings her arms in front of her
back and forth until she suddenly

hugs herself tightly and then
explosively un-hugs herself and then

she begins to swing her arms again
the next guy in the circle
begins to shuffle and paw


Strategy

she came to him
and he carefully
built a chance

but knowing his
foe he tried to
insure his success

before finally she
saw that her hostile
country would suddenly
come to defeat